


Two Mean Priests in a Cheap Motel

by Margo_Kim



Category: The Exorcist (TV)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Slash, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 15:41:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13010928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Margo_Kim/pseuds/Margo_Kim
Summary: Marcus owned three socks. Correction, in the spirit of accuracy: he owned three nonmatching limb tubes of fabric which slouched onto his feet in a manner that suggested that they might have, in a better life, been socks. They did not have a discernible left or right food designation. They barely held the structure of a heel. They could be, or at least they were, worn on either foot without concern for left or right or up or down. Tomas wondered occasionally if Marcus had ever considered cutting off the toe part entirely, thus removing all obstacles to shoving his foot blindly into whatever he pulled out of his bag first.No, Tomas was being unfair. It would be wrong to say that the socks had no structure. By the time Marcus took them off, for instance, they could stand on their own, and they didn’t smell nearly as bad as you would expect, since the first whiff of them conveniently dulled the nose.





	Two Mean Priests in a Cheap Motel

**Author's Note:**

> a fic with the premise, "what if they had an okay time for once"

Marcus owned three socks. Correction, in the spirit of accuracy: he owned three nonmatching limb tubes of fabric which slouched onto his feet in a manner that suggested that they might have, in a better life, been socks. They did not have a discernible left or right food designation. They barely held the structure of a heel. They could be, or at least they _were_ , worn on either foot without concern for left or right or up or down. Tomas wondered occasionally if Marcus had ever considered cutting off the toe part entirely, thus removing all obstacles to shoving his foot blindly into whatever he pulled out of his bag first.

No, Tomas was being unfair. It would be wrong to say that the socks had no structure. By the time Marcus took them off, for instance, they could stand on their own, and they didn’t smell nearly as bad as you would expect, since the first whiff of them conveniently dulled the nose.

When Tomas got back to the motel, Marcus asked him, “What’s this?” Although—again in the spirit of accuracy again—he actually said, “Ooof,” first as Tomas tossed two shopping bags right onto his defenseless stomach. Tomas couldn’t help it. Marcus sprawled on the bed as he did all things: oddly. His legs dangling over the edge, his arms stretched to the headboard, with his bag half under him, as if he had sat down and collapsed back the moment he sat down. He probably had, and been asleep the whole time that Tomas was at Walmart.

“I bought you socks,” Tomas said.

Marcus propped himself up on an elbow and raised his eyebrow at the fished out package of black boxer briefs that Tomas had bought on the grounds that if Marcus’ current underwear was on par with his current socks, that constituted a medical emergency.

Tomas shrugged his jacket off. “And some other things. I guessed your size. If they don’t fit, I can wear them.”

“Should fit,” said Marcus. “Most things do if you work at it.”

“Most things do not fit, Marcus. Sizing is real and it matters.”

“Mmm.” Marcus hummed a tone of contented disagreement and dropped back onto the bed. “Nice thing about the Church. Everything presented to you, just keep your blacks laundered and keep the sick stains to a minimum. Took the decision making out of dressing.”

Marcus did not talk about his excommunication. Not much, except when Tomas apologized for it and Marcus said not to worry about it in that gruff sort of way he got when he worried that his presence in someone’s life was causing disproportionate inconvenience, not _we’re out of eggs and milk and most of our groceries now actually,_ but _you’re worried about me. Don’t worry about me._ Tomas ought to foster this, ought to follow the line of conversation, but if he followed too eagerly, then Marcus would know Tomas was following it, and then Marcus would move away from it, partially because Marcus believed in bottling up emotion until it exploded out when least convenient and partially because Marcus was a dick. Tomas tried to weigh these concerns, and ended up saying, “You make decisions about how you dress?”

Marcus, reclined with one arm throne over his eyes, grinned. Smirked. Grin-smirked. It was hard to tell with Marcus when his eyes were covered. Tomas needed to see how they were glinting before he could ever be half sure whether Marcus was making fun of him or not. “Sure. The prison sweatshirt or the shit one.”

“The prison sweatshirt is also a shit one.”

“Yeah, but the shit one is shitter.”

“We’re stopping at a thrift shop before we leave town.”

“Why? I’ve already got nine socks, five medium black pants, two sweaters. My riches abound.”

Marcus was still half lying on his own bag. It turn Tomas’ back just looking at it so he stomped over and tugged it out from underneath him. “Those aren’t pants,” Tomas said pointedly, as he placed Marcus’ bag on the floor with more care than Marcus had ever shown it, not that Marcus noticed, arm still over his eyes. It stretched him in such a way that his shirt rose up just above his navel. Pale white skin flashed in a way that put Tomas in mind of the underside of a fish, a tone that made clear that even the marginal ruddiness of the normally visible parts of Marcus probably counted as a good tan for him. Tomas smiled to himself before saying as sternly as he could, “You’re not allowed to wear them as pants.”

Marcus snorted. “They’re English pants, they’re underwear, you Yank.”

“You’re the first person to call me that.”

“You’re the first person to buy me undergarments.”

“Then I get to say how you wear them,” Tomas said. Marcus lifted his arm turn sleep mask just enough to grin at Tomas and open his mouth before Tomas added, “Don’t.”

“What?” Marcus said, all smirking innocence. “What’d you think I would say?”

Tomas did not deign to answer. It would just come out sounds prissy anyway, and Marcus would tease him, probably by flirting with enough plausible deniability that he could tease Tomas all the more if he blushed, which he wouldn’t because Tomas was a grown man, even if he was a grown man sworn and then resworn to chastity, which meant among other things that he should stop looking at the jut of Marcus’ hipbones or the stretch of his neck as he laid his head back. The easiest way to do that was to stop looking at Marcus altogether, so Tomas sat on the bed and flopped on his back beside him. “I bought shampoo as well.”

Marcus made a disapproving grunt. “We get it free from the rooms.”

“You barely have hair. You barely bathe. I need shampoo.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re a mean priest?”

“Has anyone told you?” Tomas asked back before he remembered that he wasn’t supposed to ask about what wasn’t there anymore.

But Marcus just laughed, a joyous cackle. “Every damn week. You should have seen me after sermons.”

Tomas’ head snapped to look at him so quickly he nearly pulled something. “You gave sermons? You had a parish?”

“I got around.” Marcus half turned to him, stopped before they bumped noses, to give him a wry sort of look. “You step in for the local priest who doesn’t know how to drive a demon out of the local barkeep, he usually asks if you want to stick around for service. You do an impressive enough job, he asks if you want to say a few words.”

“Please,” said Tomas. “Please let me hear the Sunday wisdom of Father Marcus.”

Marcus laughed again, with a smile that was almost a wince, and Tomas realized in euphoric revelation that this was what Marcus looked like when Marcus looked sheepish. “They didn’t ask me back, I’ll say that.”

“I beg you,” Tomas begged. “One sermon. Just a taste.”

“Piss off,” said Marcus, who looked a little redder in the cheeks than he’d been a moment ago. He moved to sit up before Tomas threw his arm across his chest.

“Were they all about demons?” Tomas asked. “Were they about loving your neighbors? Marcus, please. Marcus, did you try to relate to the teens?”

“Inviting you with me was a mistake.”

“Did you break into parishioners’ houses and ransack their personal belongings for ideas?”

“Right,” said Marcus, pushing free and getting up. “I’m taking a shower.”

“Is that a yes?”

Marcus pulled off his sweater so he could ball it up and chuck it at Tomas’ head. It smelled very bad and did nothing to stop Tomas’ laughter. Tomas was vaguely aware of Marcus, standing in the door to the bathroom in his undershirt with his arms crossed, watching him; Tomas was more acutely aware of how hysterically he was laughing into his hands.

“It’s not that funny,” Marcus said when Tomas subsided to giggles. His mouth looked cross but his eyes didn’t, they had a sort of brightness that Tomas loved to see, and they kept their brightness even while they rolled as Tomas burst out laughing again.

“It’s not, it’s not,” Tomas agreed. “I just—” He lost another moment to laughter, the kind of laughter that fed itself and churned out still more laughter. “I just would very much enjoy being in your parish. I would want nothing more than for you to be my neighborhood priest,” he said with complete honesty, which seemed to shock Marcus out of whatever he had been going to say next.

Tomas had seen his fair share of wild cats in Chicago—there was a little cat street gang that had congregated outside the backdoor of St. Anthony’s at nights. His secretary had complained loudly that someone must be feeding them, and Tomas had tried to look as innocent as possible. They’d been hungry; he’d always been fond of Saint Francis. That he was lonely and lacking for soft small creatures to love was a ridiculous thought, considering how full his days were of people. He was the single father to his troubled parish, and he rarely had time alone to think, let alone to pine for company again. The only times he truly had to himself were the quiet late nights when, if his parish suffered, they suffered without calling to him, and even in those moments he had the cats, so he was not lonely, no, never, and obviously he’d never read and reread Jessica’s letters and yearned with something that gripped tighter and harder than mere lust. Absurd.

Sometimes he was amazed he went so long without breaking his vows, but since those moments coincided with him wondering how he ever thought he had the strength to be a priest at all, he tried not to linger there.

Tomas had never gotten any of the cats to allow him to pet them. They were properly wary of humans—or perhaps even in those early days, they sensed the unclean rank that haunted the Rance family and mildewed the spirit of whatever place there went. But there was one cat, a tattered looking tabby with a fair share of battle scars and a nasty yowl. It’d sit on the steps beside Tomas, just out of reach. Its tail didn’t swish properly, it was too broken for that, but it’d jangle back and forth in a way that seem to approximate contentment. Marcus seemed to jangle in the same way, hanging out in the doorway with a look like he didn’t want to be smiling the way he was, with that uncharacteristic embarrassment tinting his face.

“Well,” he said, stopped, shook his head, still smiling and grimacing against his will. “Doubt you would have heard anything I said. I, ah. I get nervous up there.” He rubbed the back of his neck while glancing around everywhere Tomas wasn’t. “I’ve been told I’m too quiet. I don’t think anyone in a pew’s ever heard me preach.” Then he added, “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?” Tomas managed in an almost normal tone, an act of extreme perseverance in the face of impossible adversity.

“Like Christmas has come early.”

“I would never,” Tomas said earnestly. “So many people come to Christmas Mass. You would be so shy.”

Tomas had to shout that last bit at the bathroom door, which Marcus had stormed through and shut behind him, but he was sure Marcus had heard. Tomas would be happy to repeat it for him when he came back out. In the meantime, Tomas rolled off the bed, still laughing, grabbed the packet of underthings he’d bought Marcus, and opened the bathroom door just enough to chuck them inside, with a personal satisfaction undiminished by Marcus’ indignant squawk. Tomas had yet to see the face of God, but he was pretty sure that buying Marcus clean socks and underwear counted as the Lord’s work.

**Author's Note:**

> catch me garbage blogging constantly about this show over at [my tumblr](http://andhumanslovedstories.tumblr.com/)


End file.
